Books

[Pedrito]

Yeh I bought so many last year that I've sworn off buying anything until I've checked whether it is in the library. Ireland's library system is actually pretty good and I'm kicking myself for all the cash I've wasted in Easons. Would be good to see if we can get a bookswap going on here instead of handing over more cash to Amazon.

This is a very good idea. I'm not sure how it would work in practical terms but it's a certainly worth thinking about - there's a lot of well-read folks on here. I'm constantly buying books - Christ knows when I'll get to them.

We're looking into doing an extension at home so I need to do a bit of a cull - I don't want to but it is what it is. I popped into a local charity shop and asked if they'd take books and stuff. The only ones they want are celebrity/sports autobiographies and the "Aisling" type books. I had to have the last part explained to me.

"Nothing else sells. We've taken carloads to the dump recently."

The fucking DUMP?!?!?!

Is there a PM service on this site? Would like to contact you

[Don Gately]

Reading Perfume by Patrick Suskind

[Eoin McLove]

Cool book, I read it years ago. There's a pretty decent film adaptation worth watching and I saw recently that there has been a tv series made that is based on the same idea but appears to be set in modern times.

[Kurt Cocaine]

Reading Perfume by Patrick Suskind

I'm about half way through that. Looking forward to finishing it. 
My girlfriend bought it for me. She loved it.

[StoutAndAle]

How are they (awesomebooks) for quality? I've found buying secondhand online to be very hit & miss, it'd be nice to know a reliable seller.

I'd be interested in the answer to this too.

I've mentioned that I've used https://thebookshop.ie/ in the past for 2nd hand books...

Just received my latest order - only took a few days. All books are in good to almost new condition. Yet again, one or two appear to be unread.

[Carnage]

Good to know, cheers.

[kiehozero]

Caved in and picked up Dune for nothing with a Hodges Figgis loyalty card at the weekend. Trying to finish a book about maths called Taming the Infinite by Ian Stewart first though. It's decent enough and I'm trying hard to keep up but I get the feeling that in another one or two chapters I'll have lost any understanding I had left. Also stuck Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault on the bedside, that was a total game-changer for how I saw everything when I was younger. A lecturer at my uni a renowned expert on Foucault's work, but she'd more often end up telling stories about him bringing male prostitutes to parties.

[Don Gately]

Reading The Dragon behind the glass by Emily Voight

[StrangersWithGuns]

Whoever has the next clear out just start a new thread, it's probably going to be me by the looks of it.

Just about to finish Mortal Engines, a collection of mind-bending short stories from Stanislaw Lem. Really good stuff, very much geared towards robots going off the deep end, and some completely batshit stuff as well. Really rewarding. Goodreads (which I've also learnt is an Amazon vehicle) tells me I'm already through seven books for the year, no idea how that has happened, my target is only 25.

Mortal Engines movie was awful. Might check the book out based on what your saying though.

[Caomhaoin]

I'm reading John Buchan's biography of James Graham, aka 'The Great Montrose', a Royalist commander during the The Wars of the Three Kingdoms (English Civil War).

I'd read about him before in another book about that war. Little known outside Scotland but one of the most remarkable soldiers and tacticians in history. His victories are so unbelievable that it's almost stranger than fiction. The bulk of his small army was Irish which makes it that bit more interesting for you and I.

The author licks his arse a bit excessively but the story of the mans life is unreal. He'd give Tilly, Wallenstein, Rommel or any of your champagne generals a run for their money

[kiehozero]

Whoever has the next clear out just start a new thread, it's probably going to be me by the looks of it.

Just about to finish Mortal Engines, a collection of mind-bending short stories from Stanislaw Lem. Really good stuff, very much geared towards robots going off the deep end, and some completely batshit stuff as well. Really rewarding. Goodreads (which I've also learnt is an Amazon vehicle) tells me I'm already through seven books for the year, no idea how that has happened, my target is only 25.

Mortal Engines movie was awful. Might check the book out based on what your saying though.

The book is mainly short stories, so unless they used something else I'm not familiar with (this is the first I've read by him) then I'm surprised they got enough to make a movie from it!

Just started Firefighting which is a history of the last financial crisis written collaboratively by Ben Bernanke, Tim Geithner and the guy who was head of Goldman Sachs at the time. The regularity with which they are using the word 'trillion' is quite alarming.

[Don Gately]

Jamie Dimon?
I read Too big to Fail a few years back written by Andrew Sorkin who was involved in TV series Billions.

[kiehozero]

Nah it's a lad called Henry/Hank Paulson but I'll check out Too Big to Fail for sure. I was made redundant from my first job out of uni due to the banking crisis (half of our work was for Lloyds TSB) so I've always had a lingering interest in how the whole thing happened.

[Eoin McLove]

I picked up Actress by Anne Enright over the weekend.  Hoping to get stuck in to it soon but I'm slowly, steadily ploughing through London Fields by Martin Amis, which is alright but I had hoped for something more profound from him seeing as he is a mate of Salman Rushdie and Ian McEwan. Dunno... it's grand.

I'm expecting great things from Actress as Enright's last book,  The Green Road,  was a masterpiece. I'm half tempted to put Amis on hold for a bit...

[blessed1]

Life's too short to continue reading a book that you aren't getting into imo.
If its still not doing it for me after 100 or pages I just don't bother finishing it.